1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system for rapidly displaying surfaces of computer graphic models.
2. Description of Related Art
A system for creating surfaces from volumetric data has been described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,821,213, Cline, Ludke, Lorensen, Apr. 11, 1989, "System For The Simultaneous Display Of Two Or More Internal Surfaces Within A Solid Object" (`Marching Cubes Method`). This produces surfaces efficiently, however as the number of volumetric data points becomes larger, it becomes more feasible to another method, described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,719,585, Jan. 12, 1988, Cline, Ludke, Lorensen, "Dividing Cubes System And Method For The Display Of Surface Structures Contained Within The Interior Region Of A Solid Body" (`Dividing Cubes Method`). `The `Dividing Cubes Method` subdivides each voxel into a points and normals using trilinear interpolation. The point and normals represent surfaces which are rendered.
Trilinear interpolation becomes computationally burdensome, especially on less powerful desktop computers which cannot perform interpolation quickly.
Therefore, there is a need for a simple computer graphic system which rapidly displays surfaces of volume data which is computationally less burdensome.